


He Would Know

by Nessotherly



Series: Realm of the No-Homos [1]
Category: Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb, Tawny Man Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Sex, Angst, But It Is Needed so They Finally Stop Being Stubborn Idiots, Canon Non-Binary Character, Canon Rewrite, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, First Kiss, First Time, Fix it of sorts, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, PWP, The Quarrel, angry blowjob, dubcon, plot with feelings, probably a bit OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:14:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22098499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nessotherly/pseuds/Nessotherly
Summary: “I would never, do you understand me? I could never desire you as a bed partner. Never.”He glanced aside from me. A faint rose came to his cheeks, not of shame, but of some other deep passion.I stared at him, dumbstruck, once more faced with the realisation of his desire, and something like horror took hold in my chest. “I wouldn’t… Men don’t. Not together.” My face was heating from embarrassment. “It isn’t—”“How would you know?” His voice was barely a whisper and I could hear the sparks of anger behind his words. “Plumbing again, Fitz. It confounds you. It always has. Yet details of such insignificance hold no weight to me. Not when it comes to you. Yet in all of your wisdom you proclaim these words as if they were facts — a universal truth, that men and men don’t, but women and mendo.”___Where the Fool calls out Fitz's ignorance.
Relationships: FitzChivalry Farseer/The Fool
Series: Realm of the No-Homos [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1590676
Comments: 10
Kudos: 68





	He Would Know

**Author's Note:**

> So this is mainly a stupid thing to tame my frustration at both the Fool and Fitz's stupidity and my nudging them a bit towards actually doing something with this huge bagage they carry over three trilogies. It is a bit dub-con and by the end of it they've still not entirely dealt with whatever they feel for each other, but they will work through it. I'll write these canon divergences for every part of the books that I feel they could have done some snogging to appease all of that UST.  
> ALSO. Don't sue me Hobb. These characters are not mine, as you very well know, AND I receive absolutely no penny for this. This is fair use of copyrighted material. Protect me, AO3. Also, if you want punishment for my daring to write on these two dumb babies, know that I probably should have spent the last five hours working on my american literature essay and that the consequences of that will be dire on my future.

_“You know what I feel for you. You have known it for years. Let us not, you and I, alone here, pretend that you don’t. You know I love you. I always have. I always will.” He spoke the words levelly. He said them as if they were inevitable. There was no trace of either shame or triumph in his voice. Then he waited. Words such as that always demand an answer._

_I took a deep breath and managed the elfbark’s black mood. I spoke honestly and bluntly. “And you know that I love you, Fool. As a man loves his dearest friend. I feel no shame in that. But to let Jek or Starling or anyone think that we take it beyond friendshipís bound, that you would want to lie with me is—” I paused. I waited for his agreement. It did not come. Instead, he met my eyes with his open amber gaze. There was no denial in them._

_“I love you,” he said quietly. “I set no boundaries on my love. None at all. Do you understand me?”_

_“Only too well, I fear!” I replied, and my voice shook. I took a deep breath and my words grated out. “I would never, do you understand me? I could never desire you as a bed partner. Never.”_

_He glanced aside from me. A faint rose came to his cheeks, not of shame, but of some other deep passion._

I stared at him, dumbstruck, once more faced with the realisation of his desire, and something like horror took hold in my chest. “I wouldn’t… Men don’t. Not together.” My face was heating from embarrassment. “It isn’t—” 

“How would you know?” His voice was barely a whisper and I could hear the sparks of anger behind his words. “Plumbing again, Fitz. It confounds you. It always has. Yet details of such insignificance hold no weight to me. Not when it comes to you. Yet with all of your wisdom you proclaim these words as if they were facts — a universal truth, that men and men don’t, but women and men _do._ ” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

Despite his swaying, his eyes rose up to meet mine, their colour a flaming and vivid gold. He spoke the words slowly, his voice so similar to that of the taunting youth he’d been that my chest constricted painfully. Each word stood as a single sentence, articulated as if it were nothing more than one of his old jests for King Shrewd’s court. “How. Would. You. Know.” He waited, hands clasping at the back of a chair with such strength that the articulations of his delicate fingers had turned white. 

“W-What?” I managed to blurt out, my face now aflame. “What do you— How would I—” 

“Indeed, _how_. And now let me ask you another question: how dare you even put a judgment on something you have no first hand experience of?” 

My eyes widened, and the words came out before I could stop them. “I _have_ experience.” I sounded childish; a teenage youth willing to assert his knowledge of adulthood. 

The Fool’s giggle sounded cruel to my ears. “Not on that account.” 

“Of course I don’t!” I exclaimed, and I couldn’t help my staggering step back. “It is _wrong_ , it is —” 

My retreat seemed to amuse him as much as fuel his already growing anger. The Fool stood up from his leaning over the chair and slowly walked towards me. His stance was almost predatory.

A dam seemed to have opened, and the Fool blurted out his resentment in a flowof words that had me take a step back from each one he took towards me. The back of my legs bumped against furniture until I finally lost my balance on a discarded armchair. “You force this dreaded conversation on me — on _us_ — with no consideration for the strain it would put on our friendship. We could have gone all our lives and never had this conversation. Now you have doomed us both to recall it forever — _my_ rejection and _your_ disdain. And here you stand, all high and mighty, speaking with authority on something you have absolutely no say in. You accuse my love for you to be unnatural, misplaced. You look at me with disgust, and now fear. Did you ever truly believe I might seek from you something that you did not share my desire for? Well do I know how distasteful you would find that.” 

Yet his words were in stark contrast with his stance. I gulped as he towered over me, arms braced against the armrests of the chair I sat in. He kept a careful distance, yet his golden curls unfurled from his neglected braid and came to brush against my face in a wave of an intoxicating and luxurious perfume. I held my breath as I felt the heat of my face lowering to my abdomen, and glared up at him. 

The Fool finished his trail of thought, his eyes never leaving mine. “How distasteful you find _me._ ”His gaze burned mine with his resentment and shame. 

I felt a pang of guilt. “I do not find you distasteful,” I struggled to let out. It wasn’t a lie, and I thought it important that he knew. Those were words that I hoped could salvage whatever was left of our relationship. 

The Fool let out a shaky breath; he smelled of wine and brandy — my eyes widened at the realisation of his inebriated state. “Don’t you?” he asked in a low voice, his suddenly dark pupils altering between my eyes and something lower — my lips? no, the collar, and Jinna’s exposed charm. I made for my hand to tug at my treacherous collar, but he slapped the back of it impatiently. “How would you know?” he asked again, and his now familiar words seemed to convey a whole other kind of meaning. His voice was now estranged from me — a deep, manly rumble that almost vibrated in my chest and that I had never heard before. An entirely new, unknown person now stood before me, and shamefully, I felt my interest stirring in my lap. Heat rushed once more to my face. 

How would I know, indeed? 

A satisfied, cruel smirk passed on the man’s face and I knew he’d noticed it; yet his eyes had never strayed souther than my neck, I was sure of it. “Well, well,well, FitzChivarly,” he snarled. My heart beat painfully loud in my ears, and for a couple of painful seconds, we seemed to wait for something that hang harrowingly in the air. Our faces were too close, in that infuriatingly intimate way that always preceded a bedding, yet in this room, with this man, it felt infinitely more different than any moments I had shared with Molly, Starling or Jinna. 

Suddenly, the Fool came back, replacing the threatening man’s traits in my friend’s face, letting out a shaky breath, maybe even a sour laugh, and straightened up, breaking the moment. He’d been _bluffing_. Inexplicably, my hand came to wrap around his wrist and held him in place. His skin was warm; he was feverish, I realised. Had truly been ill. Mayhaps his condition, mixed with the spirits, had loosened his tongue and brought forth his previous boldness. He froze and lowered his eyes on my hand. “Fitz,” he said. A simple warning. His hair hid his expression, but I still could feel the thundering beat of his pulse. I should have been horrified. I should have straightened up and left the room, never to return. But I was terribly, inexplicably aroused. 

“Show me,” I said, my hold on his wrist secure even as he tried to free himself from it. “Show me, and then I’ll know.” 

He blinked up at me. A strange feeling of triumph came over me as I saw that his pupils were as dilated, if not more, than before. He still wanted me. Perhaps he’d always had. His desire for me, I saw it now, had never been conditional. It merely was. “No, Fitz. You are not in your right mind —”

“Are you?” I snarled, and I did not let him the time to answer for I cupped the back of his neck and brought him down to my lips. A challenge. I dared him to go forth with his supposed instruction on the matters of unnatural desires. Neither one of us was in his right mind. Yet, as a low growl escaped my lips against his warm flesh, I could not possibly care for it. I kept my hold on his wrist and licked at his lower lip, taunting him to go forth with his previous advances. For that was what it had been: a cruel game of seduction on his part, and I had fallen for it, as I always had when it came to his foolish jests. 

Suddenly, he was back to being that foreign creature I had merely glimpsed before. He hummed hungrily against my lips and all but melted against me, possessive and famished, a lecherous entity that all but swallowed my misplaced lust. The elfbark seemed to emphasise my growing anger at him that translated in a game of tongues and breaths where we struggled to overpower the other. I let go of his wrist to tighten my fingers around his waist. It must have been painful, yet it only transpired in a loud and obscene moan of the man as he climbed on my lap and all but ground his evident arousal against mine. He swallowed my own groan with triumphant delight. His hands came to press on my shoulders, his otherworldly strength pinning me in place as his groin rolled expertly against mine, taking my breath away. 

“How unnatural is it then, Fitz?” he murmured against my lips as I let out yet another pitiful moan. “Merely flesh against flesh, isn’t it now? Although, it could probably do with a little less clothing. Maybe you’d understand better then.” His tongue slowly went down my stubble and pressed against the apple of my neck, then bit down on the oversensitive flesh. My body tightened at the assault as I gasped for air, at if it would control the sudden shivers that ran down my back. He hummed appreciatively, then brought back his attention to the assault on my neck, the grinding of his hips as he lowered his hands to work on the buttons of my shirt. 

The world seemed to swirl around me; maybe it was the headache, the elfbark, the sudden intake of air I was subjecting my body to, or merely the blood having left my brain to focus only on the places he touched me. When he finally managed to pull my shirt open, he lowered his mouth to my chest and the sensitive nubs of flesh there. I hissed at he bit down on one, and almost came apart from just that. I hadn’t known my nipples to be that responsive to stimulation. My hands grasped at whatever was left of Lord Golden’s braid, tugging on it as he made his way down my abdomen, climbing down my lap so as to kneel at my feet. He’d undone the knots of my breeches and was nuzzling at the curls of hair there. 

Shame suddenly overtook me and a loud, ridiculous gasp escaped me as the Fool bit down on the sensitive flesh of my navel halfway through the cloth of my undergarments. Panic slowly made its way to my chest as my fingers tightened more intensely on the Fool’s hair. It was his turn to let out a moan, but he tentatively slowed down his ministrations. His hands came to hover over my length, but he came to rest his cheek on the top of my thigh as he looked up at me with his unbearably dark eyes. 

“We can stop here, Beloved,” he said, back to the Fool, and the sudden tenderness in his voice moved me more than I was confortable to admit. “You’ve proven yourself. It is enough.” 

Tentatively, my thumbs came to caress the curve of his cheekbones, the worry in his frown, and the curve of his lower-lip that I suddenly thought to be more attractive than anything I’d seen before. “This isn’t about proving something anymore,” I managed to whisper. I didn’t know how true this statement was.

“Isn’t it?” he asked. 

I shook my head, then hissed. My length pressed painfully against my breaches, acutely aware of the Fool’s closeness to it. “Please,” I added, my heart’s beating doubling in fear of his rejection. I would deserve it, I thought briefly. It would only be fair. 

Yet the Fool went to run his thumb against the protruding form of my clothed cock. “I know you, Beloved. You will regret it. It is only your lust talking. Such prejudices do not go that easily away.” His words came out slowly as he continued his caress, almost distractedly. He seemed lost in thought, even as he stood in such an obscene position. 

“Please,” I begged him once more as his ministrations brought me shamefully closer to the edge. My hands tightened on his hair once more, and his lips came to brush against my cock. “Eda, Fool, I— _Please.”_

He sighed resignedly, then, with a trick I had no time nor will to comprehend, lowered his mouth on my cock as if no clothed barrier had ever stood between us. One more, I came embarrassingly close to completion, and the cry that escaped me was neither dignified nor human. His tongue played almost aggressively against my length and the curve of my tip. With a dexterity that had me shaking on my seat, he took me all in with dexterity, and as the sudden warmthsurrounded my sensitive flesh, I burned with rage at the idea that such experience had to come from _somewhere_. More secrets, more and more and still I held no true grasp of who my supposed friend truly was. Anger had me clench his hand and pull him closer still when I touched the back of his throat. I almost regretted it, but the way in which the Fool moaned and writhed down at my feet had me suspect the man did not truly mind my treatment. 

I came quickly with a cry I barely managed to hold back to as to not confirm the whole keep and the rumours it had been circulating about Lord Golden and his manservant. I’d tried to pull him away from me at the last second, but he’d planted his nails on my thighs and swallowed me whole as I came undone at the back of his throat. When he finally detached himself from my overworked length, he sat back on his heels and looked up at me with an indecipherable expression. He was shaking all over, _that_ I could most definitely see, and his eyes were unmistakably wet, either from my almost suffocating him or something else, I couldn’t say. He swayed a bit on his heels and I was guiltily reminded of his weakness. 

“Fool, I —” I said tentatively, but he held out his hand before him. 

He was flushed, and his eyes were still as black as when — I interrupted my thoughts as I saw one of his hands come to rest against his obscenely moistened lips. He wiped it with a grimace, then braced himself on the low table so as to help him up to his feet. His arousal was still painfully evident. “Fool,” I started again. 

“No, Fitz,” he interrupted me as he finally looked away. “It was a mistake. I’m sorry, I—” He swayed on his feet, and guilt flooded me as I thought of the fact that the lack of air I had subjected him to probably could not have been advisable in his current state. “You can go, Badgerlock,” he added in his Lord Golden voice, and he walked slowly back to his chambers with the support of the furniture that he passed. 

His door closed. I remained sat on my chair, dumbfounded, then hurriedly did back my clothes and sprung to my feet so as to open the door of his chambers. 

He stood by his bed, one arm circling the wooden hangings of his canopy as the other worked furiously on his own arousal. He let out a sharp cry of indignation as he heard the opening of the door but I ignored him, fuelling my courage with that exhilarating and peaceful feeling that came after a particularly satisfying orgasm. I walked towards him and bit down on his neck as my arms circled him from the back, one hand against his stomach to press him closer to me and the other coming to replace his own on his length. This— this, I knew how to do. The angle was the same as when I would touch myself in the dead of night. The Fool’s cries of pleasure rung in my ears and I shushed him with appeasing words I had no recollection of. He came just as quickly as I had, arched against me, one arm passed behind my neck to support himself and I pumped his over sensitive flesh more than he could handle. 

When I let go of his cock, his body hung limp against mine, and it took me a second to realise that he had very much fainted from his orgasm. Worry gnawed at me once more, and I managed to redo the expensive ribbons of his now ruined breeches before laying him down on the bed. 

He stirred after a while as I stood by the edge of the bed with a cold compress pressed against his forehead. He blinked up at me, and the flush that spread in his cheeks could have either been from the fever or the sudden recollection of the unfathomable thing we’d done. 

“Don’t,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Leave me, Fitz.” 

I shook my head. He frowned. I was still angry — angrier, still, yet it simmered down in my belly with trepidation. I still could not grasp what had happened, still could not understand the vague stirring of my cock as I took in the glory of the man, his still swollen and obscenely red lips that had not yet recovered from the wonderful thing he’d done to me. 

All I managed to say was: “You’ve done this before.” 

And the Fool was even angrier than I. “Don’t flatter yourself thinking that I had been saving myself for you, FitzChivalry. That I had never known intimacy of that sort.” 

I swallowed back an icy retort. I could understand his hurt, yet jealousy coiled in me in ways I had not felt in years, or— maybe I had. His flirting with the nobles had always unsettled me, and my realisation of his possible lusting after other people had dismayed me more than I cared to admit. I had just lacked the clarity I possessed now to recognise it. 

“I don’t—” I started, then paused, searching for the words. I still felt resentment, but I felt I owed him this, owed him some sort of explanation, of clarity regarding the maelstrom of emotions that had suddenly rushed through me. “I don’t understand, yet. This. Any of this. I haven’t— never— I don’t understand what you did to me.” At my words, his frown deepened, and he opened his mouth to protest. “What _we_ did,” I quickly corrected myself. “To each other, I— I don’t know how to _feel_ about this. Nobody had ever done that thing you did to me, I —” I flushed as I struggled for words, but it was difficult to find them as I had not yet managed to understand what it was that I felt. “Men shouldn’t,” I tried to explain, knowing very well that I was going all wrong on that account. “That is— I know we _did_ , but I have always heard that it _shouldn’t_ be done, and I—” I stopped. My thoughts couldn’t not form the sentences I needed them to conjure. 

Thankfully, the Fool came to my rescue. His weakened hand grabbed mine and tentatively laced them. I let him. It was nothing more than we’d done before _this_ , yet I could not stop the sudden rush of my heart nor the knowledge that this held much more implications than it used to. “You’re afraid,” he said. I nodded, even if this admission cost me. I had neither the will, nor the strength to look further into the implications of what we’d done. It all felt so terribly wrong yet simple and clear, a sort of evidence that came too close to implications of destinies and prophetic dreams to make me confortable. 

“I understand,” the Fool said. Yet he sounded sad, still. I frowned at him. “I’m sorry. I should have controlled myself.” 

“No. We both engaged in this.” I stopped, then forced myself to find the strength to look a bit more into my feelings about this whole ordeal. “I— I cannot say that I truly regret it, Fool.” 

Tears prickled at his eyes. I strained my lips as my own fet a bit too wet for me to be confortable about it. 

“I want to sleep,” I said, finally. “I am exhausted.” 

The Fool didn’t reply immediately. He closed his eyes, as if in deep contemplation of what my implied request entailed. Then he sighed, and shifted to the side. “Lay down,” he said. “But be quiet. I don’t feel so good.” 

“I know,” I said, then quickly discarded my shirt and my boots, and climbed into bed next to him. He curled in on himself, and my arm hovered above my body for a while, hesitating then finally coming to curl against the Fool’s chest. I held him as my lover, stifling his trembling and sharing my body head through his fever. 

He slept through the day. I dozed in and out of sleep. Dawn came, and I tucked him under the luxurious blankets. I changed my clothes in my own darkened room, hiding whatever trace he had left on my skin, then went down to the kitchen to fetch us breakfast. 

As I was about to leave the kitchen with our large plate of food, I suddenly realised one missing piece that I had never given much thought to before. “Where are the flowers?” I asked Sara the Cook, and her eyebrows sprung up high. 

“Garetha isn’t awake at this hour, sir. She usually arrives whenever you or the little lad comes for Sir Golden’s breakfast.” 

I frowned at that. Garetha? The name sounded vaguely familiar, as if belonging to an estranged memory from another life, that of a boy roaming the corridors of the castle unknown to all but for one colourful jester. 

I nodded to Sara, though, and passed by the gardens on my way back to Lord Golden’s chambers. It was winter, and I struggled for a while to find the trace of a single purple crocus. When I found it, I plucked it delicately and added it to the plate, then went back up the stairs to the Fool’s chambers where I opened the door quietly and went to sit by the side of the bed, setting the platter on his commode. At the noise, the Fool turned and blinked up at me. 

Silence hung between us as I felt myself flushing, then —

“Breakfast?” he asked, and his tone was almost mocking. I flushed even deeper, and snapped: “Oh, just sit up and eat.” 

He wiggled his eyebrows, then managed to stand up on his pillows so I could settle the platter on his knees. I resolutely kept my eyes low. I feel like an idiot, a lovestruck teenager trying to please his lady with ridiculously chivalrous intentions. I swallowed back my pride; I was Lord Golden’s manservant, after all. And Lord Golden was indisposed. He’d better eat in his bed. 

The Fool’s eyes were intent on the small crocus. That, on the other hand, I had more trouble justifying to myself. “I—” I started, yet I had no explanation for the gesture. 

“The flowers,” he breathed. “They were yours.” 

His golden eyes set on my face, inquisitive and hopeful. Slowly, I shook my head. “No. Those flowers were from that woman— Garetha, I believe. Apparently, sheis the one that places a flower on your platter every morning. She knows the hours at which the lad goes down to pick up your breakfast. I’ve often met her whenever I am the one to pick it up.” 

He nodded slowly. “Garetha. Yes. Yes, I remember her.” He smiled, yet there was sadness in the curve of his lips. “She worked in the gardens. She must have recognised me for the Fool that I was… and apparently still am.” He adverted his eyes, then brought a cup of tea to his lips as if to divert himself from whatever was bothering him. 

Oh. He’d thought they were mine. I swallowed down the remorse I suddenly felt, yet I had no reason to feel it— not really. I felt for him though, for the embarrassment he must feel at having brought his hopes up on my affections. 

“I came down there very early,” I quickly added, my own gaze fixed on my hands and I felt heat rushing once more to my cheeks. “I asked for your breakfast, but as I was leaving, I saw that something was missing from your platter. That’s when Sara told me where those flowers came from, but Garetha had probably not waken yet.” I found the courage to look up at him. 

He frowned and his gaze came to rest on me. “This one is yours,” he breathed, barely making any sound. 

I was afraid, oh yes; very much afraid indeed. Yet I drew in whatever courage I had left. “As will the following ones. If you’d let me.” 

We looked at each other for a while. His eyes shone with fever, exhaustion, or maybe hope. He didn’t reply to whatever we both knew my request entailed, refusing to give his clear assent. 

Whatever clue he ultimately decided to provide me with was a lopsided smile that he quickly hid behind his cup of tea. 


End file.
